Some good speculations on this thread, and at this point even though that is all they are, it's a fun read people, so cheers for all opinions and observations, even the ones I don't necessarily agree with. It's a good sounding board for the hobby. 🙂

4 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

They used 2 petabytes of raw data to build the world together, it doesn't mean the sim files will be this big.

Doesn't say "raw" anywhere. Data is always compressed these days, and the 2 Petabytes will already be compressed too. Lossless maybe, but not in any way "raw".

Quote

Spencer says that 2 petabytes of geographical data is used to seamlessly stitch together Earth.

He says the data is used, not that they used it. Sound more like real time to me.

But anyway, what is the alternative? GCBraun states that he has 30% of the planet on 7 TByte. Even if it scales linearly, that means 25 TByte of local data for the whole world using high compression (on an XBox?). Are you really suggesting that people shall download that much data to local disks as opposed to just stream and buffer it?

With that much data, I really can't see any technological way how (and why) it should be kept locally.

Best regards

45 minutes ago, DaWu said:

No way. We all pray that this will be NOT a Flight v2 so we should not name it that way.

FS2020 ist absoultely fine.

FS2020 will never do. Microsoft hasn't used that year-based format since Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight, and we all just ended up calling that FS9 anyway.

I'm trying to bring my expertise as a marketing change agent to the table here. At the end of the day, we need to think outside the box to come up with an intuitive, cutting edge title for this new sim.

"Flight" could so easily have become ubiquitous in the sim community, but sadly the disruptive change heralded by the development of the Fly Inside Flight Simulator put paid to that.

I'm suggesting here that we need a viral campaign that will result in a win-win outcome for both ourselves and our colleagues in Redmond. With that in mind, I've decided that we'll action a strategy of using the well-known "Flight" brand, alongside some other established Microsoft trademarks that are currently available for re-use.

Here's my shortlist:

• Microsoft Flight Vista.
• Microsoft Flight - Bob. With this option, we'll already have the user interface sorted.
• Microsoft Flight Kin ("Project Pink") - if we decide to go with a no-DLC business model.
• Microsoft Flight, Lumia Edition - then we can market this as "The First $7 Billion Dollar Flight Sim".

Satya, that's just the start of my pitch. Call me.

4 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Doesn't say "raw" anywhere. Data is always compressed these days, and the 2 Petabytes will already be compressed too. Lossless maybe, but not in any way "raw".

He says the data is used, not that they used it. Sound more like real time to me.

But anyway, what is the alternative? GCBraun states that he has 30% of the planet on 7 TByte. Even if it scales linearly, that means 25 TByte of local data for the whole world using high compression (on an XBox?). Are you really suggesting that people shall download that much data to local disks as opposed to just stream and buffer it?

With that much data, I really can't see any technological way how (and why) it should be kept locally.

Best regards

I'm interpreting his phrase as raw data used to build the scenery. He doesn't specifically say that, but he doesn't talk about the size or how it will be rendered on the sim, so we are all speculating. I really doubt a sim would need 2 petabytes of data to build the world. A lot of data they have can be discarded  as they would have no use for a sim.

Streaming the scenery would limit a lot the costumers. I really doubt they are aiming that. Unless they have an online scenery (always updated) and an offline scenery (based on less complex data).

Has anyone mentioned seasons yet? 

😀

Edited June 12, 20196 yr by CaptCWGAllen

2 minutes ago, CaptCWGAllen said:

Has anyone mentioned seasons yet? 

Yes, in one or two of the previous pages, not sure which ones though... 

1 minute ago, CaptCWGAllen said:

Has anyone mentioned seasons yet? 

No. Just "reallistic, challenging weather conditions". Too soon to get into details, they said almost nothing. An interview with Phil Spencer will be published in the coming days on PCGamer and it might bring more light to it.

11 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

I'm interpreting his phrase as raw data used to build the scenery. He doesn't specifically say that, but he doesn't talk about the size or how it will be rendered on the sim, so we are all speculating. I really doubt a sim would need 2 petabytes of data to build the world. A lot of data they have can be discarded  as they would have no use for a sim.

Streaming the scenery would limit a lot the costumers. I really doubt they are aiming that. Unless they have an online scenery (always updated) and an offline scenery (based on less complex data).

To be honest I agree completely with lorby_SI. I really doubt they are NOT aiming that.

I mean, there could be other options not online for scenery, but if you want the real deal, I see no other way than streaming

Edited June 12, 20196 yr by chass32

Just now, chass32 said:

To be honest I agree completely with lorby_SI. I really doubt they are NOT aiming that.

Sure, I might be wrong. My opinion is biased by what I really hope they will do. LOL

20 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

I'm interpreting his phrase as raw data used to build the scenery. He doesn't specifically say that, but he doesn't talk about the size or how it will be rendered on the sim, so we are all speculating. I really doubt a sim would need 2 petabytes of data to build the world. A lot of data they have can be discarded  as they would have no use for a sim.

Streaming the scenery would limit a lot the costumers. I really doubt they are aiming that. Unless they have an online scenery (always updated) and an offline scenery (based on less complex data). 

OK. But local scenery just doesn't make sense mathematically. Why use and openly quote 2 Petabytes of GIS data when it is then compressed for example by a factor of 1000 - still leaving a 2 TByte download and probably severely compromising the visual quality?

Streaming is the solution of choice for this requirement. Buffered, layered, streamed in small chunks at a time. That still doesn't prove that they will do it that way of course.

Those MS flight sims have always been resource hungry, leaving some customers behind. It may just be a different resource this time. But since it is supposed to run on the XBox hardware, MS will have the right answer for that.

Best regards

 

Edited June 12, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

A funny thought just came to me. Maybe it's not Bing that the new FSX world is based on but the Outerra one. It looks eerily like something out of the Outerra videos. I am no expert on this, but someone here with more knowledge on this could comment.

26 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Doesn't say "raw" anywhere. Data is always compressed these days, and the 2 Petabytes will already be compressed too. Lossless maybe, but not in any way "raw"

The term "raw-data" isnt just about data compression (like RAW files in photography). It means unprocessed, pure data that still needs to be adapted to be fit for a certain purpose . As ca_metal already stated, it may contain data thats completely irrelevant for creating scenery

12 minutes ago, cargomaster said:

A funny thought just came to me. Maybe it's not Bing that the new FSX world is based on but the Outerra one. It looks eerily like something out of the Outerra videos. I am no expert on this, but someone here with more knowledge on this could comment.

Highly improbable. As far as I understand, Outerra uses procedural scenery, not photo ground.

Kind regards, Michael

1 hour ago, GCBraun said:

2 Petabyte of satellite data does not mean that we would need 2 Petabytes for the final scenery. I have about 30% of the world in Ortho4XP and need about 7Tb.

Ok well, do we honestly think that (using your figures) approx 25TB of data will be supplied any other way then streaming?

39 minutes ago, CaptCWGAllen said:

Has anyone mentioned seasons yet? 

😀

Great mention.  I have wondered about this too given that its going to be cloud based data.

Edited June 12, 20196 yr by ErichB